Coded Skin
by Ppleater
Summary: Sometimes, Tucker wakes up at night. Sometimes, Church doesn't sleep at all. Five times Tucker figured out that Church was a robot, and one time he forgot that Church was still human.


1:

Saying Captain Flowers was overbearing was like saying that grass was green. He was cheerful as shit and cared about "team moral", but he was also a stickler for doing the dishes, and keeping the base clean, and only taking your helmet off when you're not on duty. So it takes a few days for him to see Church with his helmet off.

It's not like he has a particular desire to see his fellow team member's face, it's just a thing. One day they both get to go off shift at the same time, and Captain Flowers says "You boys deserve some down time together, get to know one another! Maybe share some things, sharing's always fun!" then he goes off to watch the Red Team do absolutely fucking nothing for the next few hours.

Church lets out a gusty sigh and pulled his helmet off, wiping a hand over his forehead, even though their suits are air conditioned, and he's not sweating. He has dark hair, flattened from the helmet, and a dusty five o'clock shadow that matches the dark circles under his green eyes. He has eyebrows that look like they could kill, and he centers his glare on Tucker. Tucker is pretty sure he hasn't done anything wrong lately, and he braces himself, but Church just turns around and walks into his room. It's eight pm and Tucker is fucking exhausted, so he follows Church's lead and heads to bed. He figures Church probably just has resting bitch face or something, and forgets about him as he falls asleep, dreaming of pin-up models who have way too much leg hair (he's not picky).

When he wakes up his clock says it's three in the morning. Flowers shouldn't be back yet, so he wonders what woke him up. He's thirsty anyways, so he grudgingly pulls on his boxers and heads to the kitchen. There's a light on, and he hears a rattle, so for some reason instead of just walking in, he peers around the corner. Church is standing at the counter, rifling through a bunch of boxes of pop tarts and some Tupperware containers, while looking vaguely frustrated. He runs a hand through his hair and growls, before leaning forward and pressing both palms down against the counter. He stands there, hunched like a gargoyle over the pile of various food items.

Just when Tucker has decided to just go in and ask him what the fuck he's doing, Church snarls and sweeps a hand across the counter, sending all the pop tarts and containers of leftover spaghetti tumbling to the ground with a clatter. He stands there, frowning mightily at the mess he'd made, then turns around and stomps back out the other entrance to the kitchen, heading for his room.

Tucker waits a few more moments before going back to bed. He doesn't really feel like getting a drink anymore.

2:

After that incident he watches Church a bit more carefully, and notices even more weird behavior.

Church never eats.

It stands out more to him now that Church never goes to the kitchen for food. He might go there to talk to someone who was already in there, but never to eat something. He doesn't eat, he doesn't drink. He doesn't even go to the bathroom.

Church also rarely sleeps. He does sleep, maybe once a week, but between those times he just sits in his room and reads. Tucker had taken to using the bathroom more often at night, since the path to the toilet crosses in front of Church's room. The door is usually open a crack, for reasons Tucker can't fathom, and more often than not the light is on. Church would just be sitting on his bed, or in a chair, reading, or playing a game, or just staring at the wall looking bored.

Tucker has also come to the conclusion that Church probably doesn't masturbate, which is definitely fucking weird.

Probably the most disconcerting anomaly is the way Captain Flowers acts around Church. He doesn't really give any special treatment, but Church gets specific jobs more often than Tucker. Anything involving math or computers. Church can read fucking binary apparently, even though he can't figure out how to read military time. Flowers often gives Church strange glances when he thinks Tucker isn't looking. And a few times, when going to the bathroom at night, he's seen Flowers on his way back from a similar trip, taking a longer route that conveniently passes by Church's room at night.

Tucker has eventually been forced to come to the obvious conclusion; Church is a robot.

Flowers is obviously in on it, Tucker can just tell by the way the Captain looks at Church. So he decides not to ask about it. It's being kept as a secret, and if they find out he knows, they might ship him off to some other planet, which could be even worse than this one. At least here he doesn't have to actually fight anyone seriously. The Reds are laughably incompetent.

He just hopes that Church won't go Skynet on their asses and kill them in their sleep. That would just suck.

3:

After Flowers dies Tucker decides to stop being a creepy stalker and just let Church do his own shit. It doesn't really matter if Church is a robot, he acts human, and that's all Tucker really cares about. Though he does wonder how Church doesn't know. He doesn't even have to crap, which seems like something somebody would notice. He does seem to be affected some times. Like the time with the food, he would often get frustrated over something for seemingly no reason. Tucker once found him standing outside the bathroom door looking confused. The door was closed, but there was obviously no one inside, so Tucker pushed past him and opened the door. "You gonna take a shit or what?" He'd asked, honestly curious. But Church had just given him an angry look and stormed off, muttering various curses under his breath. Tucker wonders if human bodily functions just confuse him.

When Caboose shows up and kills Church, he has to rethink his robot theory a bit, because he's pretty sure Robots don't come back as ghosts and possess people. Then the whole thing with O'Malley happens, and it just clicks. An AI, of course. They were based off of the memory of someone else, which would explain why Church sometimes got confused by human actions. He'd walked in on Tucker brushing his teeth once, and had just looked absolutely baffled. Maybe he was remembering what it was like as a human or some shit. Maybe he was programmed to not figure it out, or notice that he doesn't function like a living person.

So when they're all sent off to different areas of the solar system, he takes a brief moment to wonder if Church's next team will notice that Church isn't human. Not everybody is as stupid as caboose, so it makes sense. He wonders how they'll react.

* * *

He shares a power bar with Junior while he imagines amusing scenarios; Church getting his head twisted off like a screw and complaining angrily about how he'd "finally gotten that body on right and now you've fucked it up!" He imagines people throwing magnets at Church and watching them stick. And Church insists that he's a ghost, not a robot, and makes angry faces at anyone who disagrees.

The next time he hears about church it's when Caboose tells him "Church died stopping an evil group of AI who were trying to find and absorb him." And Tucker just kind of stares blankly at him. Church doesn't die, Church just becomes transparent, and complains about how his body has been damaged, and then puts it back on again like an old wrinkled jumpsuit. "Don't worry!" Caboose assures him, "I'm making another best friend!" He shoves a weird purple football in his face like a trophy. "Here he is! Say hello!" but the football just hums indifferently, as the lights on its casing pulsate like a heartbeat. Tucker feels like he's been robbed somehow. He hadn't even said good bye, just "Have fun being a loser while I get all the ladies." And Church had rolled his eyes and gotten onto his ship without saying anything.

It feels like the stupidest fucking way to lose a friend, he doesn't even want to acknowledge it. So he doesn't, he ignores it and hopes he just eventually forgets about it.

4:

Epsilon is not Church. He's told himself that so many times by now that he feels like a record stuck on repeat. Epsilon is a fragment, a fraction of the real thing. A copy.

He's still cranky, still snotty and bitchy, and still full of himself. Caboose still worships the ground he walks on, and they all still bicker like they're at a family reunion.

But Epsilon is about a foot tall and floats above Tucker's shoulder, when he's not floating around in a stupid little orb. Epsilon gets angry, _furious_ when they save his life and drag him out of the memory unit. "It was over!" He'd snarled at Caboose, "I was at peace!" At least the temper's the same.

He talks big, like he's still the leader, like he knows what he's doing. For a while, Tucker almost feels like he really _is_ Church. And then the AI offers to go spy on Carolina, and comes back on _her _shoulder, like a fucking traitorous parrot. Suddenly they're on this suicide mission to stop the Director, even though it isn't their fight, and Tucker doesn't care.

He finds it easy to walk away, when Epsilon's image glows red with fury. He turns around and walks away while Epsilon's voice echoes through the enormous hologram chamber, his voice distorted and unrecognizable.

"Guys…"

It's easy.

"Guys wait…"

Because Epsilon is not Church. Church never asked for anything like this. What Church did best was take responsibility when no one else would, complaining the whole time. He took the blame when shit went wrong, and he never asked for anything more than to listen to orders. Not that they did.

When Tucker was pregnant Church complained the whole time, but he dealt with it. When O'Malley was on the loose, Church dealt with it. When Tucker was injured, he dealt with it, and when anyone made a mistake, Church would sigh, and yell, and swear, but he dealt with it.

It's not until later that Tucker feels bad. Because Church never asks for _anything_. And the one time he did, Tucker walked away.

5:

Tucker imagines a lot of different ways that he could react the next time he sees Church. He likes the idea of strangling him, but unfortunately you can't strangle a hologram. He toys with the idea of giving him the cold shoulder, but he has too many things to say to him to keep quiet. He decides that he should just sit down with Church and _tell _him how much of a fucking asshole he is, and wring a promise out of the bastard to never fucking do it again.

Instead, when Church cheerfully greets them with his arms wide open, Tucker yells, "You fuck!" and tries to tackle him, which ends with his face in the dirt and Church looking down at him in confusion.

They fight, of course they fight. It's been months, and Church didn't even say goodbye. It's like everything Church ever does is meant to drive Tucker absolutely mad. And the worst part is no one else says anything. Not even Wash, who usually would be the first to call Church out on his bullshit. Though, of course, he always defers to Carolina first. But Wash talks to Church like normal, and so does Caboose, and the reds, and Tucker is left fuming in the background.

When he pulls out the storage device and teleports them out of the crash site, it devolves into a screaming match. "News flash!" Church sneers, "I'm _made outta numbers!_" and everything just goes wrong from there. It ends with the enemy, who'd been teleported along with them, attempting to kill Caboose, and at Church's shout Carolina springs into action and gets injured.

After it's over Tucker is left standing above everyone as they kneel over the downed freelancer, while blood pools on the ground and soaks into the soil.

Just another mistake.

* * *

The lecture Caboose gives him is scorching. Caboose doesn't lecture, it doesn't sit right on him, "Shut up, and get over it!" He snaps, and his face is deadly serious.

Everyone makes mistakes.

Tucker doesn't like being in command, making decisions, taking the blame when shit goes wrong, having to deal with the consequences. It sucks. He remembers the people who've died because he was stupid, the people who almost died because he was just angry, because he was trying not to make the same mistakes. He really is being a bit of a hypocrite.

So he sort of almost apologizes, and when Church says "Normally you guys just stick around and I have to do everything." Tucker tells him, "You don't have to do everything anymore." Because it's true, he doesn't. Neither does Tucker, and it's such a fucking relief. It's only been a few months, but the weight of leadership has driven him down for what feels like an eternity.

He wonders how long it's been for Church.

+1:

It's not like it's unusual for him to have trouble sleeping. They've lived in a war zone for a while, and something like that makes you a light sleeper. But Tucker has always prided himself in his ability to drop dead on the mattress as soon as he's managed to wrestle his pants off (Wash can go fuck himself if he thinks Tucker would ever give up sleeping naked).

War is a funny thing. He thinks he should be used to it, considering he joined the army. But what he knew before back in blood gulch wasn't real war. He doesn't remember any of his decisions getting someone killed. For-real killed, and not 'comes back to haunt you and turns out to be an AI' killed. He'd never been stabbed, never been betrayed, never betrayed anyone.

He misses blood gulch.

He _definitely_ misses when he only had to share a fridge with Church and Caboose, because Grif always put the fucking milk back in the fridge without closing the goddamned lid. He sighs morosely at the carton, which was decidedly more horizontal than it was supposed to be, and the pool of milk that has spread out on the bottom. Looks like his midnight cereal will have to be eaten dry.

He's poured himself a bowl of Lucky Charms, and is picking out a few marshmallows to chew on, when he sees a flicker of light in the corner of his eye. With a whisper of static Church flickers into existence, his tiny blue feet hovering about five inches above the table. He materializes without his helmet, and gives Tucker an unreadable look.

"Are you having trouble sleeping?" He asks, his voice and attitude as blunt as they'd ever been. Tucker snorts.

"Sorry mom, am I up past my bedtime?" He asks, Church just scowls, like he scowls at everything. Tucker has gotten pretty good at reading his mood based on his scowls. This one meant 'I need a facial expression to indicate that I heard what you said, but I'm going to ignore it and continue my previous train of thought'. It was a common one.

"Carolina keeps bugging me about everyone's sleep schedules." He says, "Like I have any desire to pay that much attention to you idiots. I have a lot of more important things I could dedicate my brain to, like counting blades of grass." He folds his arms and scowls again. It was his 'I don't like being told what to do' scowl this time. The corners of his mouth turn down more severely and he sticks his nose up in the air, like he smells something bad.

Tucker doesn't really want to think about Church watching them all sleep at night, so as a distraction he asks, "What, don't you sleep too? I remember you used to sleep… Or I guess the Alpha used to sleep." He mentally winces at the mention of the Alpha. 'Epsilon' never seems to react to mentions of the original AI, but Tucker doesn't like having to reconcile the Church standing in front of him, and the one Wash had talked into sacrificing himself. He hadn't even been there.

Church shrugs. "I don't have to sleep all the time, so I kind of avoid it I guess. I don't really like sleeping. I dream too much."

Tucker gives him a skeptical look. "Dude, can AI's even dream? Don't you just see numbers and shit?" Church actually looks offended at that.

"That's racist." He says with a huff (Tucker is still convinced that every time Church says that he's fucking with him). "Of course I dream, we're programmed to dream. I dunno why. Theta used to get nightmares like crazy.

"What do you dream about?"

"I dunno, stupid stuff. What the fuck does it matter?" The scowl is back, the 'I don't like when people ask me personal questions' scowl. But Tucker's curiosity is already peaked.

"Seriously, do you, like, dream of taking over the world like Skynet and shit? Or do you dream about going to school in your underwear?"

"What are you, ninety? No I don't dream about being Skynet." He shrugs a shoulder awkwardly, "I dream about… I dunno, being on missions and stuff. Having to do calculations. Sometimes it gets weird, like, one time I dreamt that no matter how hard I tried I couldn't change my colour back from yellow to blue. Sometimes I just dream about everyone doing random shit, or crazy shit. I dreamt you had a giant nose made of butter once. You kept sneezing and mashed potatoes would fly out."

Tucker laughs pretty hard at that, and starts choking on a lucky charm. Then Church laughs at him and calls him a "fucking idiot", and it takes a moment for them to quiet down. Tucker stares down at his half empty bowl, and just lets himself enjoy the comfortable silence.

He could only really get that with Church, though he'd never admit it to the smug bastard. Caboose never stays silent for very long, and with Wash it was always awkward. But with Church sometimes they got too sick of each other's voices and they just decided not to talk, and it was fucking great.

Great things don't last though.

"Hey… Tucker?" Church's voice is hesitant, more that Tucker ever remembers hearing before. Tucker isn't really interested in some sort of sappy heart to heart, especially not with Church. Their mutual half apology had been awkward enough. But he bites his tongue on the automatic insult. It's 1 am, and Church won't look directly at him, and he has about a quarter of a bowl left of his midnight cereal. So he hums in response and takes another bite, carefully studying the reflection in his spoon.

Church continues, "Do you… Have nightmares? About all this shit? I know Wash and Carolina have a lot of issues already, and Caboose can't be traumatized, even if you stuck a bunch of puppies in a blender right in front of him and fed them to him as a smoothie. But you're… Normal I guess? Like, does any of this shit affect you?"

Tucker chews as he contemplates, even though the food is already mush. He takes his time swallowing, then looks at Church, who is still hovering in the exact same spot, though he's flickering a bit now. He remembers Church had been complaining about headaches. "Are _you _having nightmares?" Tucker asks, because that's Church's 'I'm fucked up emotionally and I refuse to deal with it like a normal healthy human being' scowl. Church's head snaps up and their eyes meet for the first time that night.

Tucker always forgets that Church's eyes are green. He expects them to be blue every time, just like the rest of him.

"I uh…" Church looks like he wants to deflect, but Tucker is staring straight at him, trying his best to imitate Wash when he's trying to be the team shrink. "I guess, sometimes. I have to right? If I can dream…" Another scowl. Church should just change his name to Leonard McScowl, he scowls so much. It's like it's a fucking sport for him.

"What do you have nightmares about?"

"What are you, my therapist? What else _would_ I have nightmare about, dumbass?" He actually looks angry, like for-real angry and not 'I have a stick up my ass' angry. Yeah, okay, probably a dumb question. Tucker didn't like to think about it, but Church had a lot of stuff to have nightmares about.

"I had a nightmare tonight." He says, even though he meant to say 'Take a fucking chill pill'. This seems to take all the steam out of Church's anger and he visibly deflates, sighing heavily and running his hands through his hair, a familiar nervous tic. "Usually it's about getting stabbed," Tucker continues, not because he wants to, but because he can't seem to stop talking, "but tonight it was about getting Rogers and Cunningham killed again. Except at the last minute they turned into Wash and Caboose, and you were standing on my shoulder telling me how much of an idiot I was. And then Felix showed up and stabbed me."

Church frowns, "I would have called you an idiot _before_ you got someone killed, not after. That's just being an asshole." He mutters, sounding a little miffed, as if he'd been insulted. "In my… Nightmare, I keep having to do these stupidly big equations. But every time I do them they come out wrong, no matter how many times I do it, or how careful I am. Which doesn't makes sense, 'cause I'm a fucking computer. But every time I get one wrong someone dies, and Carolina starts screaming at me to fix it, to save you guys. I can't see anything, 'cause I'm in this big glowing room, and then the Director comes on the radio and tells me that everyone's dead and it's my fault." The words come out in a rush, like Church is trying to say them fast so that Tucker won't be able to process them. There's an ugly silence afterwards while Church just glares at Tucker's empty bowl, like it's somehow at fault for everything.

"I guess we're both pretty fucked up then." Tucker says finally, and Church snorts. "But when I feel particularly fucked up, I get up and get something to eat, then I go back to bed. And if I have another nightmare, I do it again. I'd gain weight if Wash wasn't a fucking slave driver." Church laughs lightly and shakes his head, looking rueful and tired. Tucker hadn't really noticed before how tired Church looked, maybe because Church _always_ looked tired, in the same way Carolina and wash did. Like the air above their shoulders weighed as much as the earth itself, and they were being crushed. "You should try to sleep." He says, standing up with a scuff of the chair, and tossing his bowl lazily in the sink. "I know you don't need it, but you look like shit dude. And if you have a nightmare just come bother me and I'll pour us both a bowl of lucky charms."

"Dude, that's super gay." Church says, but he almost looks thoughtful as he stares at the box of cereal, which Tucker had deliberately left on the table. He knows how nuts it drives Wash when he doesn't put shit away, and Angry Wash was a ton of fun. He got so red faced and squawked like a bird. It was fucking hilarious.

With a final Chug of orange juice from the fridge, which is starting to smell a bit off due to the milk, Tucker makes his way back to his room, kicking his pants back off and flopping onto the bed. Church hasn't followed him, but he can see the faint blue glow in the kitchen. He watches as it flickers and goes out, leaving the hall in darkness. Sometimes he forgets that Church isn't just code and holograms. He makes it so hard to pay attention to how he feels, insulting people and blustering until he gets what he wants, and you just stop looking for stuff like that, because Church won't let you see him being weak.

Tucker wonders if Carolina knows that Church has nightmares. He wonders what Carolina has nightmares about. Maybe about falling off a cliff, or about fighting an army of Tex clones. Or maybe she dreams about having a squeaky voice, and every time she tries to speak everyone laughs at her. That image gives Tucker a chuckle, and he lets his eyes close, drifting slowly into sleep as a helium voiced Carolina lectures him on the proper way to break an opponent's leg using the least amount of force.

He doesn't have any nightmares for the rest of the night.

The end.


End file.
